Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Swans, those seasonal birds,are for family on my golden compass.In the 1940s, in Amsterdam,Your grandmother ate one.Imagine, in the dark bowl of your belly,A creature from a fairy tale!They are from the sea lifeI led (did I mean fled?). The empty rowboat on the shore, The ocean sloshing its sides, That’s for loss of a parent.And then another. And on shore there’s the chicken named Gertrude,Wandering in and out between my feet, Leaving a sad, small egg -- the best she could do -- one Saturday morning Before Mr. Miller took her away.Gertrude, she is for an unexpected guest.Mr. Miller, for a kiss.

The frost covered window for loneliness -- unseen -- The greyhound for making paths to nowhere. Why need such a compassIf one were never leaving?Or what need one of lilac bushes? For asking when?

Monday, April 6, 2009

Watching Old Believers. The stark black and white is so dreamlike and enchanting. The grainy quality. The horses near the swamps, the fiddler, the women all in scarves, and the ecstatic bell ringer. Mostly the horses. They were a dream. I could nearly hear their breath. I could gaze at that image forever. So winter reminds me of this kind of quiet loveliness. The warmth of black and white. The lyrical quality of the absence of color.

Friday, April 3, 2009

for Vincent

Teach Me to Look

What is this spell you cast?I want to ask, how can the moon’s gold last?Rolling waves of stars and sky?Their light multiplied by the iris of your eye!You spun their orbit on a wheel of water,And wound the cypress to a blackened spire.The little village you put to sleep Beneath a blue haze,While men and women slept, Some cold, more hungry, But none so full of your praise --A blanket of paint, cool and quiet, Under the stars eternal riot.That night, and there were many,When you turned your gaze to the sky,To the canvas above calling you,Calling you, goodbye.